Congress to America: We Need a Babysitter!

So the Democrats are worried now that the debt is exploding and that the anger of the American people will oust them from office unless they get spending under control appear as if they are doing something to try to get spending under control. So, because Congress doesn’t like to make hard decisions about what programs to cut, they are using the traditional congressional cop-out — A bi-partisan commission! Bi-partisan commissions are usually made up of former government officials who were involved in causing the very problem they are trying to fix (e.g. Jamie Gorelick on the 9/11 commission), who make unattainable recommendations that are never acted upon.

In this case, it’s a debt commission. The debt commission would have as its mission to recommend spending cuts. As all government commissions, it will likely be proven ineffective. However, unlike other commissions, it also has the benefit of being unconstitutional. The debt commission, as currently proposed, would require a congressional up-or-down vote on ALL resolutions, without any amendments or filibusters, all by year’s end. Now, a constitutional scholar can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that an outside body can tell congress what it has to vote on and how they will vote on it, even if Congress tried to give that outside body that power.

At the end of the day, it’s all a sham. It’s all for show to try and make the Democrats look like fiscal hawks in time for the midterm elections. Yet the Democrats today have spent nearly 4.7 Trillion on “stimulus” projects that have done nothing to stimulate the economy, not to mention the nearly $1 Trillion ObamaCare monstrosity that we nearly got saddled with. I doubt that the voters will look at this “debt commission” and think that the Democrats are really getting serious about debt reduction, just because a commission was established. Then again, it could make for some really interesting votes come October.